Clinton

Has No

Nominee

Republicans Blast

Frontrunner Babbitt

May 11, 1994|The New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Clinton tried and failed again on Tuesday to decide on a nominee for the Supreme Court after encountering sharp Republican opposition to one of his leading choices, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, administration officials said.

Clinton had been advised of the potential political trouble over the weekend as he consulted with leading senators about his top candidates for the court seat and solicited advice about prospects for easy confirmation, the officials said.

White House officials who participated in a one-hour selection meeting on Tuesday said Clinton would likely announce his choice by Thursday, but that he was still "going through the calculus" to decide on a nominee.

Babbitt, the official acknowledged, had become a "political lightning rod" in a process that the White House had hoped would move smoothly through the Senate.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said Babbitt would attract fire from senators from Western states who have feuded with him over environmental issues, like the decision to increase the grazing fee on federal lands.

Hatch also described Babbitt as "a nominee who would be pushed by the far left" and as the kind of judge "who would legislate from the bench laws that the liberal community doesn't have a tinker's chance of getting through the people's elected representatives."

Sen. Hank Brown, R-Colo., has also criticized Babbitt as a court nominee. Administration officials said on Tuesday that the conflict would not be disqualifying for Babbitt, but that Judge Stephen Breyer of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, who had previously been farther down on Clinton's list of candidates, had re-emerged as a top prospect.

Judge Richard Arnold, who sits on the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Little Rock, Ark., is also a finalist, the aides said. They said Clinton had received "conflicting reports" about the health of Arnold, who has long suffered from lymphoma.

"It's hard to know how close he ever was to a decision," a senior White House official said of the president. "This is the same thing that happened last time."

Both Breyer and Babbitt were considered for a court vacancy last year and were embarrassed when their names were floated and then pulled back by the White House. The White House went so far as to bring Breyer, who was then suffering from a bicycle accident injury, to Washington, where television cameras recorded his arrival and departure.

The names of several other candidates have surfaced and disappeared in the weeks since Justice Harry Blackmun announced his retirement, but Clinton held his options close to the vest until this weekend, when aides said he began to contact senators.